September 2015

It’s been an exciting month! Slowly, I am adjusting to the idea of being back at work, at a “real job”. Surprisingly, it’s much more like parenting than I would have expected. Reminding kids to stay on task, pointing out better choices they could make and watching as they choose to take mistakes anyway and hoping that they at the very least manage to learn from them. It’s trying, so trying. It’s hard to keep your perspective sometimes and remember that kids are NOT little adults. That there are things their brains are not yet formulated to do or handle. However, their behavior, just like ours, stems from some place, from some need or hurt inside of them. There are kids it’s hard not to label as “bad”. As humans, it’s so much easier to stick them into neat, tidy, easily identifiable little packages. Some days I have wins, albeit very small at times. Other days there are losses. I’m working on learning to leave work at work and still muster the best of me for my family.

I no longer feel as I have the luxury of “down time” and as you may already know, I have more hobbies than I ever had time for when I was staying home. Yet, I’m managing. I’m working on an art piece to enter in an upcoming show called American Horror Story and it is themed to give credence to the horror & the macabre in film and literature. The piece as it is pictured here is not yet finished- it still needs to be mounted in the frame.

I collected some of my hair as I brushed it nightly and did my best to use it to embroider an anatomical heart surrounded by text from one of my favorite poets, Anne Sexton. It reads:

Give me your skin

as sheer as a cobweb,

let me open it up

and listen in and scoop out the

dark.

The text is completed in red embroidery thread and the cotton background is stained with blood. Macabre enough for you? My fingers ache, but it was a fun piece to do, no matter how morbid it may seem. In addition, I have been working a little bit here and there on getting back to drawing in my sketchbook. Nothing fantastic, but fun and a great way to exercise new skills.

Besides continuing work in the art realm, I have been interested in writing more. You would think between this blog (which I have been ignoring a bit) and my writing for #unitecloud I would have enough of it. Yet somewhere there is a storyteller in me. I remember how much I loved writing as a kid. I took a workshop sometime in middle school (I think) at the school over the summer and loved it. After writing a story that some made fun of I set it aside and never really picked it up. Instead I moved on to Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and started writing my own very bad, angsty poetry. I finished my first short story just earlier today and at the moment am happy with it. Much like buying a new house, however, you don’t start to see the cracks and faults till you’ve lived with it a bit.

I finally finished the Grapes of Wrath! It only took me the first 130 pages to really get into it, but it was a damn good book. I will say that the ending left me feeling a bit weird, but I think that’s fair to say of anyone who has read it. I quickly read through the Secret Life of Bees to cleanse my palate and now have chosen the Adventures of Tom Sawyer to finish off my last classic for the year (at least, the last self-mandated classic).

I had the pleasure of taking Bear to the doctor today. She is getting special orthotics for her shoes to help her stop tip-toe walking. We did several weeks of physical therapy and saw a nice change in how she runs, but in the day to day world she slips back onto her toes. She is less clumsy and accident prone, but if left untreated will cause more issues. Today they cast her feet. She was a real trooper and seeing the casts only helped to show me how much she has grown! Look at those feet! Two more weeks and they will be complete; she will go in to have them fit and adjustments made.

We had a day off of school last week and I braved the art museum with the girls! As much as I love the Walker, it was pretty much lost on them, which I can honestly say I expected and had prepared myself for. It took us longer to drive one way than they were willing to stay (hence why I didn’t call you Jacki!) but I am hoping a planted a seed. Perhaps we will have better luck at the MIA when we make it there. If nothing else, they enjoyed the spoon & cherry as well as the view!

I also had the pleasure of having a little girls’ weekend away with some of the wonderful ladies I met a few years back. It was relaxing, fun, real, emotional, and all of the wonderful things it always is, yet special in it’s own way. I love the connections, getting the chance to be completely unedited and safe and loved. It was a blast! I only wish I could do it every month!

To top it all off, I am celebrating my 9 year wedding anniversary this week! We were blessed to have Nana take the girls for the weekend and had an amazing time reconnecting and remembering just how much fun we are together! Here’s to nine years of laughter and tears and to many, many more! Cheers!

One Response

Beth Z.

Sometime go to Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis, and then hit MIA at the same time. Children’s also does a ten dollar seat deal for their large productions, and there really is no bad seat in the house.